Oct 17, 2023 3 min read

Yakuza Kiwami — Best Settings & Performance for Steam Deck

These are the best settings for playing Yakuza Kiwami on the Steam Deck.

Best settings for Yakuza Kiwami on Steam Deck

These are the best settings for playing Yakuza Kiwami on the Steam Deck.

Yakuza Kiwami, the 2016 remaster of the series' premiere and the direct sequel to Yakuza 0, might be what many consider one of the very best story-based action games.

With the series often going on sale on Steam, the crime-ridden streets of Kamurocho have seen a surge in visitors — so let's see how Yakuza Kiwami fares on the Steam Deck!

Yakuza Kiwami on Steam
SEGA’s critically-acclaimed entry that started a legend. Become Kazuma Kiryu, an up-and-coming yakuza who takes the fall for the murder of a crime boss, only to emerge from prison ten years later to a changed world. Remastered from the ground up, now in 4K and uncapped framerates on PC.

Off the bat...

Thankfully the game starts with a good set of default settings: mostly a mix of higher presets, without any additional fuss.

Just like its predecessor, Yakuza Kiwami also opts for a letterboxed 1280x720 presentation — which is a 16:9 aspect ratio. On the Steam Deck though, the screen comes with a 16:10 aspect ratio, hence the device’s native resolution of 1280x800. You can switch to 800p without any issue, but will face some artsy letterbox-bars in various cutscenes.

Once again, there’s a mod available that will fix this in trade for some minor "out of frame" glitches, such as areas in cutscenes being visible which obviously weren’t planned to be seen at all. This is just a small tradeoff, but you have the choice:

Steam Community :: Guide :: Remove Letterbox Artworks Mod
Small mod that removes grey patterns from letterbox bars. Optionally removes borders completely.…

Without any changes, you’ll get an overall good experience, with the game mostly hitting 60FPS and only a few dips into the mid-50s during in-engine cutscenes or whilst exploring the busier areas of Kamurocho.

In Game Settings
SSAA Off
Render Scale Off
FXAA Quality Ultra
Texture Filtering Ultra
Shadow Quality High
Geometry Quality High

Just like in Yakuza 0, lowering both Shadow Quality and Geometry Quality a single step down from Ultra to High nearly does the trick. All of this will give you a consistent experience without major stutters.

But we’re not done yet, as the APU keeps juggling frequencies depending on the scene and sometimes won’t be able to keep up with, say, quick camera movements during traversal. That’s where some Quick Action Menu tweaks come in handy and also give us longer playtimes:

Quick Menu Settings
Use per-game profile Enabled
Framerate Limit 60
Refresh Rate 60
Allow Tearing Enabled
TDP Limit Enabled
Watts 10
Manual GPU Clock Enabled
GPU Frequency 1000

One word of caution though: As of right now, there seems to be a bug with the current SteamOS version, which disables the Manual GPU Clock setting every now and then. You’ll notice this right away when exploring the open world and heading towards one of the city's bigger crossroads. Just head into the Quick Action Menu then and re-enable it.

We hope these recommended settings help your Steam Deck Yakuza adventures!

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